Any Moment Now
by Moiranne Rose
Summary: She clung on, she wrote all those letters, because then she could fool herself that he was still coming back. Zerith


**A/N: So, I was actually working on my HDM fanfiction and The Last 100 Days' next chapter, but the call of nature, the wild and the bunnies is not to be heeded. So I went to the toilet, the park and then to the computer.**

**Getting this out wasn't very difficult at first. But through numerous sessions of conversing with my dear, dear beta, I improved it, with her helping all the way home. After a week of this, we finally smashed, bashed and crashed the whole thing until it was read-worthy.**

**Enjoy.**

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**Title: Any Moment Now  
**

**By: Moiranne Rose**

**Summary: She clung on, she wrote all those letters, because then she could fool herself that he was still coming back. Zerith**

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**Thankfully beta-ed by: GoldenShinyWireofHope**

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_It wasn't easy being a SOLDIER's girl._

_--_

He leaves her church, his boots making the only sound in the silence. She bites her lip to keep from screaming for him to come back.

He allows himself to turn back, just for a wave, a hopeful smile. Just like always. Just like all the other missions he came back from. He quickly turns away and hurries off, the oaken door of the Church closing with a tone of finality that feels almost portentous.

She falls to her knees, near her flower patch, her head bent to the angel that looks down on her graciously. Her lips part in prayer, the same imploring prayer.

--

_Please...Let him come back._

_--_

It's the first day without him, and she goes to the church as if he's still here. She can't wait for him to call (_he told her he would_) to tell him everything about her day, what she thinks about, who's bought her flowers (_how much she misses him_).She sits down, right next to the flowers, and takes out a piece of paper, only slightly crumpled, from her pocket.

She'll buy a stamp on the way home.

--

_She knows he'll come back. He will, because she can't imagine the alternative._

_--_

It's been three days, but she knows it sometimes takes a while for a mission to be a success. Zack won't leave until it's done properly. So she's willing to wait. She sells her flowers like always, happy to make others happy. When she's leaving, she hears something about two SOLDIERs, one the mighty Sephiroth, (_one the man that she thinks, maybe she knows, that she loves_) and two others who had left for Nibelheim.

She spends the rest of the day thinking about what Zack will think of getting for her.

_--_

_He'll think about her everyday. Just like she does._

_--_

A week, and it's not getting better. The ache of the loss is still so close to her heart, like a wound that's still open since he left. Aerith looks to his last words as her last wisp of him, the "I'll miss you.", the "Call you when I get there.", the "I'll be seeing you.", every little promise held close.

Tseng, whom she's seen walking around the church more often now, finally enters. After an exchange of pleasantries, he tells her that he's Zack's friend too, and is keeping watch on her for him. She smiles (_so Zack really does care for her)_ and asks if he can help her give Zack letters, wherever he is. He hesitates (_only for a moment_) and agrees.

She takes out the letters she hasn't gotten around to posting and gives them to Tseng. As he leaves, she's already sitting near her flowers and watering them, with the closest feeling to happiness that she's had for a while.

--

_Zack's short for Isaac. She's just found out that that means, "he laughs"._

_--_

A month's gone by, and her flowers now dot the whole of the Slums. People have started calling her the Flower Girl now, and she's grown to like it.

_Dear Zack, _

_Everything's alright here. All alright. You don't need to worry. Come back soo- _she cancels it out as soon as she writes it. She doesn't want him to feel pressured. (_But she so__ wants him to come back._)

She won't let herself lose hope. The whispers around her speak of great fire, great destruction in Nibelheim. She won't let herself believe it. Zack's alive and he's coming back, right now. He has always come back, so why should this time be different?

Satisfied by her reasoning, she sits down next to the flowers and pens another letter full of girlish hope and smiles. She deliberates for a long time how to end it. "_Yours Sincerely, Aerith" _sounds stiff and formal, but she hesitates over "_Love, Aerith". _Will it reveal too much of her foolish hopes?

In a rush of bravado, she scribbles the latter down and stuffs the letter into an envelope before she changes her mind.

--

_She likes to think that Zack's thinking about her too. That he repeats words to himself and dreams about pink like she dreams about violet and blue._

_--_

Half a year drags itself out, her flower cart now making rounds further than the close circle around the church.

She's staying happy and optimistic, even though she has her lapses. Maybe Zack's been left behind in some forsaken wilderness and ShinRa has forgotten about him.

When Tseng comes, she asks him about this. He only says, in a strange voice, "No one can forget Zack.". She probably imagined the remote sadness in his eyes.

She quickly pens a thought or two onto paper so she doesn't keep Tseng waiting. When he turns and leaves, she gathers up her flower basket and heads home.

--

_Nibelheim was far away. But absence always made the heart grow fonder._

_--_

It's been a long year. Spending a Christmas with Elmyra in the lonely house they share, inviting some family friends over, sharing (_forcing) _laughter to fill the silences she's grown accustomed to. She's the one this year to say a prayer before the meal.

She prays for fortune to smile on the people gathered, she prays for happiness, she prays for love and hope to sustain them. But in her heart, she's praying, so very very hard, for Zack to come back.

Even though it costs her a month of flower money, she still manages to put a present next to the flowers with "Z" on it.

--

_Any second. Any second. She'll hear his laughter again._

_--_

She counts off one and a half years with a little cross under the date on the calendar.

She likes to think about their last day. It was simple, nothing much. He had come, told her he was off for a mission (_promised he'd come _back) and he left. But before he left her (_with the flowers, the angels and the silence_), he'd held her in a more affectionate, more reluctant than normal, hug and, in return, she'd rewarded with a peck on the cheek.

She hopes it means as much to him as it did to her.

_--_

_Reciting his words in the silence of the church, it's almost like he's here with her. Almost.__If only the pews weren't so empty._

_--_

Two years. She's really counting now. Every day, every hour, every minute, it drags on and on. The words he spoke are the very same ones she's repeated a million times; they've all gotten old. So now she thinks up new ones, little fantasies that she gets more and more these days.

Ones where she'd make the imaginary ShinRa give him a day off and they'd go somewhere beautiful, someplace far away, and just sit together and enjoy the company. Or maybe they'd talk about the silliest things. Anything, _anything_, other than the fading image of him that had started to elude her.

Tseng arrives earlier than normal.

She pens down a letter, _Dear Zack_ quickly flowing to _The flowers are growing beautifully now _to _Please write when you can _to _Love Aerith _with her eagerness (_her hopefulness_). Tseng takes it and leaves, as she sits down with the flowers and relives another scene in her head.

_--_

_Her letters always start the same way. She wonders if he ever got bored of it. _

_-_

Many things can happen in six months, especially now that each day drags longer than the last.

She'd sold flowers to an old woman today. Stooped and wrinkled, arthritic limbs creaking, she'd paid twelve gil for the last of Aerith's lilies and hobbles off. They were the slightly-crushed ones that lay at the bottom of the pile, and she feels bad that she gave them to her.

Aerith leaves too, having finished for the day. As she rounds the bend on the way home, she sees the old woman again, tracing letters on a grave, sobbing quietly. Aerith quickly reads the words.  
_Aaron Raya_. _Died in Peace. _Then she walks on, afraid to be caught staring.

--

_She's so scared that one day she'll end up like that woman. Trying frantically to hold onto ghosts of the past._

_--_

The third year has gone by smoothly, with the Slums now full to the brim with her flowers. She's thinking of going above the Plate to sell the flowers there, since Tseng did tell her once that they need the happiness the blooms brought. She remembers the sky, the sky that she's so scared of. She used to be afraid of it because it was a vast expanse of inexplicable blues. Now she's afraid that it'll remind her too much of Zack.

She lies next to the flowers, and she writes another letter, number 76. She writes about some trivialities of her days, because, if she writes anymore, she's scared that tears will smudge the ink.

_--_

_He's like an old bruise. One that only hurts if she hits it accidentally._

_--_

She's lost hope so many times. Three and a half years is a long time. She fears that he's (_she can't even say his name without tearing up._) forgotten her. Or worse, what if he was...(_she didn't want to think of that. He __**was **__coming back._)

It hurts to think that they only had one year (_five months, 6 days, two hours and twenty-two minutes_) but she tries not to think that way, tries so hard to think that they'll have hundreds of years ahead (_together_) after he comes back.

And sometimes, it works.

--

_Elmyra told her that these days, it's like she's living in another dimension. Maybe she is._

_--_

Four years from the day he left her, she waits with Elmyra for the New Year, with a heavy heart. Singing Auld Lang Syne used to be her favourite thing to do. Now she doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that Zack (_He didn't! He __**didn't**__!_) forgot her, and that it's been four whole years since he walked off to the unknown place that still held him.

She falls asleep before the New Year comes and she dreams.

"_Hey Aerith?"_

_Zack, with his black armour and shirt. He's so much like the man she remembers, it's comforting.__ The smell of flowers is near. He's there, right_ _**there**__. There's this choked-up feeling in her suddenly. Something inside that's bursting to be said._

"_Aerith? You there?"_

_His consciousness touches hers, __a fleeting brush of one against the other.__ She finds that she can speak._

"_Oh Zack –- please stay –- I've missed you –- Where have you been? Where are you now?"_

"_I don't know myself...really."_

_They sit (Stand? Lie down? She doesn't know) for a moment or two, just enjoying each other's presence. Impulsively she reaches over..._

"_We don't have long..." Zack mumbles. She snatches her hand back immediately, as if burned. Her heart beats so loud, the whole place they're in pulses with it. _

(What if this is only happening in her head?)

"_Not long? Why – When will you be back?"_

_He cuts her off with a firm hold on her hand. She falls silent._

(She doesn't want it to be only in her head.)

"_I don't know, I'm so sorry. I don't know. Just...just have faith, yeah?"_

"_Of course – Zack – what's happening – what happened?"_

"_I'm not sure, but I have something to take care of. I have to go."_

_It seems __like the time they lived in snatches of time, spaces between more important things. She drops her gaze to his boots. Caked with mud.  
_

"_Zack. I...I..." No words come.  
_

"_Keep that to yourself, hun, I'll be back soon enough."_

_Everything begins __to fade. Frantic, Aerith clutches at his hand as it slips away._

"_Zack! Zack!"_

She's calling out his name as she wakes. Elmyra stands over her, concerned.

"Aerith. Aerith! Are you alright?"

She shakes her head to clear it.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

Elmyra nods brusquely, once again the strict mother figure. "Well, you missed the New Year countdown."

Aerith's taken aback by her words. Seeing that, Elmyra's face softens slightly as she sits on the edge of the bed. "Have you made your resolutions yet?"

"Not really." She answers shortly. Then she remembers her manners. "I haven't really though about it. Maybe one that goes 'Spend more time with Elmyra' or 'Help Elmyra more'?" She grins as her foster mother's face breaks into a smile.

"Happy New Year, my dear. You ought to get to sleep now."

"Happy New Year." She calls after Elmyra as the door closes, suddenly feeling an absence of warmth. Lying back, she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to grasp the remaining wisps of her dream.

--

_Well, Elmyra always said that the time between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day was considered magical. _

_--_

Four and a half, almost five years. So long. Aerith wonders how she got through it all.

(_In a day, in an hour, he's coming back_)

The long-absent rain had come. The heavy raindrops hit her bent head as she tended to the flowers. It's as if the heavens have opened and begun to weep. What...what's happened? The Planet...She can feel the truth, the painful truth, mixed with the musk of rain, falling heavily on her. She doesn't want to believe it, she doesn't want to believe it, but everything tells her it is so.

Water blurs her eyes as she looked up. She can't tell if it's tears or rainwater.

* * *

Too late.

The words seem to echo in his ears even though he's already come back. He'd owed it to Aerith, to himself, to Zack to reach him before the army did. Find him, bring him somewhere safe. But nowhere's safe for long, anyway.

His glassy violet eyes, Tseng remembers, were not unlike any other corpses, any of the other sorry souls that Tseng has killed over the years. What made him different from them? His lips were pale, almost white, and his hands were without weapon. Zack was just another person in ShinRa's way, and now he's eliminated. Period.

Tseng pushes the letters, all 89 of them, into his dustbin and gets back to work.

Aerith would never know.

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**A/N: Longest oneshot I've ever done.**

**Dedicated to: GSWoH, Wings of Fidelity and M.**

**MR**


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